Sugaring Day
by RainyDaysAnyways
Summary: With their first child on the way, Katniss and Peeta decide it's a good time for new traditions. Post-MJ Everlark in District 12. Written for MalTease.


_**A/N: **__ This story was originally written for __**MalTease**__ as part of the __**Hunger Games Secret Santa Everlark Exchange**__. MalTease asked for a (happy!) glimpse into the life of the Mellarks. Thank you, MalTease, for the prompt, and thanks to__** jeeno2**__ for talking through the early stages of the story idea with me._

* * *

What historians and folklorists will likely never know is that it actually began with an off-handed comment from Haymitch.

"With those cheeks you're starting to look like one of your damn squirrels."

As comments from Haymitch go, it was relatively innocuous. But Katniss narrowed her eyes and instinctively drew a hand to pull her jacket closed across the small swell of her belly. The old scowl, largely absent in the months since she and the boy had gotten the long-awaited news, pulled the corners of her mouth down into deep dimples against a newly plump chin.

Whoever thought scrawny, spare Katniss Everdeen from the Seam would ever have cherubic cheeks _and dimples?_ Haymitch couldn't help but say _something_. Otherwise he feared the sight of her might cause his lips to twitch into the kind of wistful smile that would betray him as a sentimental old fool.

Haymitch threw up gnarled hands against the barbs he could sense Katniss's tongue coiling to send his way. "Now hold on, Sweetheart! I didn't mean anything by it—just never thought I'd see the day."

"Well, neither did I," she grumbled, snatching up a white oak basket lightened of a loaf of sunflower-and-oat bread and a half-dozen toothsome potato-scallion biscuits.

For years, the boy had been the one to make the delivery—every Monday and Thursday, even on the bad days when Haymitch slammed the door in his face. The girl had only taken over around the winter solstice. The first time, she had mumbled something about Peeta being stuck at the bakery, calling around to the flour mills in Nine and Eleven to see if any might be convinced to arrange for hovercraft delivery. Twelve was still the end of the line—that much had not changed—and ice storms often delayed the trains that brought in most of the District's supplies.

Interior Secretary Hawthorne had been sworn in the previous year on a platform of greater district self-sufficiency. Most everyone agreed that it was a practical and necessary plan. Without the Capitol coordinating production, it no longer made sense for each district to specialize in only one or two industries. But even with the nation's top agronomists at his command, the former Mining Commissioner couldn't make wheat or sugarcane grow in the mountains and rocky hollows of Twelve any more than he could plant coal under the volcanic peaks of Seven. Until the markets adjusted, there would be hardships. Items deemed to be basic necessities—oil, grain, milk powder, canned meats, construction and industrial supplies—were given priority in freight shipments. Indulgences like sugar, tobacco, and alcohol became scarce and expensive.

With Ripper gone, Haymitch wasn't above calling in old favors to ensure a case of whiskey made it onto the hovercraft when state officials came out to Twelve to tour the new medicine factory or to evaluate possible sites for the proposed mining museum.

If Effie came, all the better. She indulged him. He could be assured of two or three cases, maybe even an entire crate. But either her contract had run out for the hosting gig on Plutarch's inane home makeover show or Twelve had run out of buildings worth fixing up. There hadn't been much grandeur in the workaday edifices of the Merchant Quarter even before the bombings. Effie hadn't been around since the previous spring—Season 3, Episode 7: an enterprising pair from Five had transformed the ruins of the Mayor's Residence into townhouses for the young families moving down from Thirteen—and Haymitch couldn't bring himself to call, despite their parting words.

Twelve was no place for Effie Trinket, even if she did insist that all the luxuries afforded her in One no longer meant anything.

A decade after the rebellion, the edges of Twelve were still littered with piles of rubble. With the New Capitol focused on developing renewable energy, there was barely any money sent for even basic infrastructure. Thom had finally taken up a collection and done much of the work himself. Everyone hoped that the medicine factory would bring more government investment, but Haymitch knew enough not to hold his breath.

Supply interruptions had already shut down production at Mellark Bakery thrice since the fall. If the regular shipment didn't arrive, there was nothing the boy could do but close the shop until the storm passed or the rockslide was cleared and the train finally got through. No one could say how long that might take. It was only two days' wait the first time, but the second nearly a week.

People had begun to jokingly refer to them as "train holidays."

When the big flour bin was emptied and there were no more bags in the storeroom with which to refill it, Peeta sold whatever inventory was left on the shelves, paid Zarbun Cartwright his regular wages, and turned the lock behind them. He trudged back through snow drifts to his house in the Victor's Village, hoping he might still be early enough to catch his wife in bed.

Though Peeta had signed his name to the mayor's petition urging more reliable train service, it did not go unnoticed by the other merchants that the baker seemed in an inordinately cheerful mood on train holiday mornings.

Haymitch had his suspicions that it may have been one of those very mornings—the first week of September, when a rainstorm had triggered a rockslide—that had gotten the girl … well, in the state she was in.

Even on the coldest nights, the Mellarks liked to keep their bedroom window cracked. Haymitch had long ago learned to ball up strips of gauze from his medicine cabinet and fit them into his ears just so. He kept a pair on the nightstand by the bed so they would be at hand in the evenings. There were things you didn't want to know about your neighbors, let alone the closest ones he had in this world to kin. Train holidays made Haymitch think about rolling little ear plugs to keep in the other rooms of the house.

Otherwise—if he wasn't in a state to take on the stairs, and many days he wasn't—who knew for how many hours he might be subjected to their caterwauling? With all their carrying on, it was incredible that it took this long for them to get knocked up, the trick-Flickerman phony baby story aside.

Haymitch had almost begun to think that his old talk with the boy, back on the train, may have worked too well.

Not that he was one for children. Not that it was any of his business, and not that he cared anyway.

"Why do you keep _staring_ at me like that?!"

The accusation shook him from the fog of memory. The girl stood with the basket clutched protectively in front of the round bump of her belly, brow knitted and cheeks flushed.

She must have caught him smiling.

"Never mind," she sighed, exasperated. She flicked her braid over her shoulder as she turned for the door. "Everyone stares. I should get used to it now. I'll be big as a hovercraft by summer."

Haymitch realized, as he heard his front door click closed and watched her retreating form through the frosted kitchen window, that what he should have said—wanted to say, if he'd had the words—was that he was happy for her.

That this new life she and the boy had made brought the aging man an unexpected and inexplicable pride.

That she was better, and braver, than he could ever be.

He really was a sentimental old fool.

**XOXOX**

She shouldn't let a stupid comment from Haymitch get under her skin.

But that was the thing, Katniss wasn't sure it felt like her skin anymore.

Once she made up her mind, she had wanted this—they had both wanted this—so badly. She was almost frightened by the fierce thrill she had felt when the midwife confirmed on her latest visit what she had hardly dared allow herself to hope for: a healthy little girl with a strong heartbeat. A little girl who was theirs, hers and Peeta's. A girl that she hoped might have her father's laugh and her sister's cleverness and her husband's kindness.

She had to protect it, their little girl. She had to do everything right.

_"You're lucky your husband is a baker," the midwife told her on her first visit, "because I'm putting you on a plan to bring your weight up."_

_The plan required Katniss to supplement each day's breakfast with two slices of whole wheat bread slathered with peanut butter. At her mother's suggestion, Peeta made batches of dense oat-and-dried fruit bars that Katniss ate at mid-morning. He brought home bags of walnuts and almonds, scooped from the bins at the bakery, for her to snack on in the afternoon. She ate two dinners, one with Peeta and a second two hours before bed. The table was set each day with a petite loaf and a ramekin of olive oil she was supposed to finish by the day's end. There were bran muffins and buttery currant scones and coarse multi-grain rolls. _

_By the New Year, she declared herself sick of even cheese buns._

_It was like being at one of the Capitol parties, or like the time on the train—the first time—when she had stuffed herself until her face went green. Only it went on and on, day after day. She groaned each time her husband pressed another plate into her hand._

_"You might feel better," Peeta offered tentatively, one morning as he was rubbing her shoulders on the sofa before the fire, "if you got out more and, you know, did more of the things you used to do."_

_He could feel her tense up. "Not that I would try to tell you what to do, Katniss. It's the midwife's suggestion—and your mother's." He swept her hair aside and kissed a line down the back of her neck in what he hoped she would understand as an apology._

_His breath tickled, and she shivered despite the warmth of the blanket they shared._

_"Fine advice, if I was a clerk in the Justice Building like Posy or wove rugs like Leevy or tended geese like Haymitch," she replied. "But I can't sling a deer carcass over my shoulder in this condition."_

_Peeta's large fingers worked to undo a knot at the base of her shoulder blade. "No deer," he agreed. "But I'm sure the District would be grateful for some squirrel or turkey or rabbit. Especially with Rooba closed until the next train gets through from Ten."_

_She sat up straight, pulling away from him, but he reached out to meet her, continuing his ministrations, his thumb rubbing circles against her worn flannel shirt._

_After a few moments, she asked fretfully, "What if I'm chased by wild dogs? What if I need to climb a tree? What if I trip over a log and fall?"_

_Peeta slipped his hands around her front, drawing her back against his chest. "When have you ever tripped over a log?"_

_"I don't know!" she protested. "I've never been pregnant before. I dropped a crock of preserves in the pantry last week. I almost slipped in the shower yesterday. I have to hold the railing on the stairs. I'm like—"_

_Peeta's laughter reverberated against her ribs. "Like me?" he asked._

_She laced her fingers through his where they rested atop the bump. "I was going to say, 'like a big, clumsy oaf.'" She gave his hands a quick squeeze. Not that she could ever see Peeta as clumsy, but he was a hopelessly loud walker, even before he lost his leg. "Let's hope this little one gets her lightness of foot from me … well, me before, not me now!"_

_Peeta was overtaken by a vision of Katniss—his Katniss, all strong legs and storm-grey eyes—holding the hand of a small child with dark hair in two braids, pointing out the hollow trunks where the wood ducks nest and sharing bits of plant lore and echoing the songs of the warblers that flit along the brook._

_"I hope she gets so many things from you," he whispered. He bent to kiss the top of her head, her curve of her ear, the dark freckle behind her earlobe. _

_Her head twisted to meet his gaze and he stilled, having been caught sliding his hands up to cup her breasts._

_"Peeta Mellark!" she mock-scolded._

_"Katniss Mellark," he answered back, ghosting his fingers along the swell at the underside of her breasts, where they now hung full. He had always thought Katniss's small breasts to be perfect, and they were. But they were somehow more perfect each day._

_She could feel him through his jeans, his hardness pressing against the small of her back where she rested between his legs. She wriggled against him devilishly and was rewarded with the sudden exhalation of hot breath on her neck. _

_"Lucky for you, Mr. Mellark, I haven't given up my indoor activities."_

_"Lucky me," he agreed, fingers moving quickly to undo the buttons on her top but finding hers already there. Instead he tugged at the hem of his t-shirt, breaking from her eager lips only long enough to pull the thin fabric up over his head and toss it somewhere in the vicinity of the coat rack. For the second time that morning, he felt his wife's hands reach for his zipper. _

_He had come to appreciate train holidays._

_He watched the arc of her dusky nipples contract and pucker under his thumbs. "I can't keep you from my mind, the thought of touching you, of taking you into my mouth..."_

_She stilled his lips with a kiss, her desire evident as her tongue sought his._

_"Then do it," she breathed, turning to rise up onto her knees, her skin pricked with goosebumps in anticipation of the heat of his mouth. _

_He hummed against the silken skin of her breast. She arched her back so that her nipple was poised in offering just inches from his lips. He knew what they both wanted, but instead he peppered her with kisses and teased with the flat of his tongue. Undaunted, she wove her fingers into the back of his hair, tugging gently to let him know that she needed more._

_Peeta looked up at her, pale eyelashes fluttering over wide pupils. "We have all day, you know. I plan to take my time—" he groaned as Katniss ground down against his hips "—if you'll allow it."_

_"I'll allow it," she said throatily. She let her head fall back, her hair reaching all the way to her waist, as he bucked his hips back against her._

_The sight was too much. He couldn't hold back any longer, and he was rewarded with the sound of his name falling off her lips like a mantra as he sucked first one breast and then the other, alternating them between his palm and the waiting heat of his mouth._

_Ten minutes later, they steadied themselves against the arm of the sofa, their breathing just beginning to slow. Katniss rose carefully, testing her foot against the floor to be sure she wouldn't come down on Peeta's discarded prosthetic. He gripped her hip, knowing she would want to clean up but not yet ready for her to go._

_"Like you said, we have all day, remember?" She paused, knowing that he must be looking up at her breasts, for she had chosen the angle for just that purpose. "I plan on doing that again … if you'll allow it."_

_He would. They did. Once more in the living room on the rug with Katniss kneeling in front of the fireplace, and again lying side by side on their bed, Peeta's hand working circles between her legs as the late afternoon sun traced the shadows of the windowpanes across the floor and tiny snowflakes blew in where they had propped open the sash._

Damn Peeta Mellark.

Damn him, with his bread and all his charming words and those blue eyes she apparently found irresistible.

She wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for him, like one of Rooba's fatted calves. The symbol that the New Capitol gossip rags had been speculating on for years: the Mockingjay, bringing to bear what Snow had tried to take from her, from their Star-Crossed Lovers, from all of them.

She felt weak, because she couldn't hide her new curves and her growing bump from the stares in the town square and from the busybodies at the market who came up to offer unsolicited advice on sleep schedules and toilet training. The older women were the worst, the ones who put their hands on her belly and made winking comments that she blushed to think others might overhear.

She felt weak, because she feared she couldn't protect this little one. If not from the prying eyes of her neighbors, then certainly not from all the potential dangers of the world. Even a world without the Reaping.

What if the supply shortages became worse? What if the bakery was forced to close for good? What would happen if Peeta ever had an episode when she wasn't home to calm him? And if—or rather, when—their daughter heard her cry out at night, how could she ever explain the faces that haunted her, the blood that stained her hands?

What if the tricks and routines they had developed with Dr. Aurelius weren't enough?

What if all they had worked over the last decade to rebuild crumbled back into ash?

There were too many things. How could she possibly protect her girl against them all?

Katniss had stopped hunting. She locked herself up inside the house.

She told herself that she was working to prepare the nursery. Some days she only got out of bed when she heard her husband's footfall on the front porch. Other than Peeta, the sweetness had gone out of her days.

She felt weak, because she no longer did the things that were her strength. She might as well have been one of Rooba's calves. Her life grew small and her muscles went slack and her body no longer felt like her own.

Her legs ached for the paths of the woods and the fingers of her right hand twitched in sleep to grasp at her bowstring.

Damn Haymitch for pointing it out.

Not that he had been the first.

_"Darling, I understand. More than you could know."_

_It might take longer than nine months for Katniss to grow accustomed to this new relationship._

_"But you're healthy, and you have none of the risk factors that would lead me to recommend bed rest, certainly not so early."_

_Katniss bit her lip. She held the phone to her ear, wondering if the background noise was static on the line or if the sound of the waves could really be heard from her mother's kitchen. _

_When they wrote to tell her the news, they had received a letter back by express post, welcoming them to come stay at her cottage in Four, where the hospital was better equipped and where Katniss might swim every day in the warm surf. Peeta urged her to consider it, assured her that Delly's younger brother—not so young now, a man of more than twenty—could manage the bakery on his own for a time. _

_"I'm sure he would be happy to be rid of me," Peeta joked. "Then he could court Posy Hawthorne from the front counter without my interference."_

_But Katniss decided it would be too much too soon._

_She hadn't left Twelve—despite invitations from Johanna and Delly—since the end of the war. Since Peeta had come back and they had made it their home again._

_"I remember being so afraid to see patients when I was pregnant with you. At first, I felt like running out of the room when anyone so much as sneezed," her mother confessed. "But people needed me, and I needed them too."_

_Katniss swallowed the memories of the years after her father's death, of seeing her mother's hands paralyzed by grief. She swallowed back the bitterness of the years after the war, the small part of her that was still trying to get over the resentment that she had been abandoned, that her mother had chosen to go elsewhere, to heal strangers rather than her own daughter._

_"I needed my work."_

_Katniss twirled the spiral cord around a finger. "I know." _

_It was another small step toward forgiveness._

_"You've never been one to stay cooped up in the house," her mother mused. "As a girl, you would rush to the door whenever your father put on his jacket to go out. I couldn't keep you inside with me long enough to teach you how to use the plants you would bring home!"_

_It was true. Prim was the one who had the patience and systematic mind for herb work._

_"You need the wild world. You need the woods."_

_Katniss remained quiet._

_"And people need you. Peeta. Haymitch and Sae and Rory and Posy. All the neighbors who trade with you"_

_She watched the tip of her finger turn purple, the blood pooling above the cord._

_"Your daughter will need you. You won't be able to protect her from everything, no matter how hard you may try. … But you can show her the strength to fight through grief and fear."_

_Katniss felt a lump swelling to fill her throat. _

_"Katniss, I—"_

_She didn't know if she would ever be ready for this conversation._

_"I better go," she said quickly so that the trembling in her voice wouldn't betray her. "I left the kettle on."_

_Through the static she could hear her mother repeating her name. She set the receiver back on the cradle and then even the waves went quiet._

Like all things, the first steps were the most difficult.

Both because it had been months since she had gone out in the woods and because with her swollen feet, her boots no longer fit the way they used to. She had to stretch the leather with her fists and pull with all her might to get them on.

It was Monday. With Zarbun still traveling back from visiting Delly in Thirteen, Peeta would be in the bakery until well after sundown. Not that Katniss intended to stay out that long. She told herself she would just go to the closest bend in the stream then loop back along the old fence line. It should only take an hour, maybe a little more if the drifts had blown deep against the north hill.

She thought about taking her bow—there were still wild dogs and even a few bears that roamed the forest—but decided she could move more freely and have better balance without it. Instead, she found the Bowie knife that had been waiting atop the mantle for Haymitch to reclaim it and attached it to her belt.

Katniss pulled her heaviest wool jacket from the back of the closet, unsure if it would still fit. Glancing at the clock, she filled the pockets with oat bars and the pre-portioned bags of nuts that Peeta had left on the kitchen table next to the olive oil. She grabbed the closest scarf, a lumpy blue cable-knit that Hazelle had helped her make for Peeta's twenty-fifth birthday. It still smelled of cinnamon sugar from hanging on a hook to dry above the bakery oven in the mornings when he made sweet rolls.

On the way out the door, Katniss caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. With the scarf wrapped twice around her head and the buttons on her jacket straining against her burgeoning belly, she thought that she resembled a tick about to pop.

She patted the bump. "Well, little one … away we go." And she stepped off the porch and into the snow.

It had taken so long to get ready that by the time she passed Haymitch's house she could hear the alarm inside from back in her own kitchen chiming that it was time for another meal. Grudgingly, she unwrapped one of the oat bars and willed herself to chew it as she walked. It must have been made during the recent sugar shortage. She could tell that Peeta had tried to make up for it by putting in extra dried apricots and raisins, another reminder of hard he worked to make her happy.

Katniss wanted to be happy again, and not just for Peeta.

She glanced down to where the top of her belly was just beginning to obscure the view of her feet as they sank into the snow. "Hello?" she experimented, unsure of how her voice should sound. "I can feel you moving in there sometimes. Can you feel me moving?" She glanced around to make sure that no one was near to see her talking to herself. It was mid-afternoon, and the residents of Twelve were either at work or shut tight in their houses.

"We're going for a walk," Katniss tried, her voice closer to its natural register. "I wish you could see this place," she said, nodding toward the curtain of shrubs that marked the old fence line. "Well, you will one day. I'll bring you here with me. Like my daddy used to bring me. How would you like that?"

She didn't expect an answer, but the silence that followed still felt hollow and strange. It was a relief when it was broken by the cheerful greeting of a chickadee from the boughs above.

In some places the snow reached her knees. Each step was work. Katniss got winded when she never would have before. But she kept telling herself _slow and steady, slow and steady. _She drew in the cold, dry air and let it fill her lungs with the scent of pine. Warmed by exercise and the familiar sights of the January wood, she exhaled steaming clouds of breath and watched it dissipate in swirling tendrils. Her fingers exalted in the familiar ache of winter's chill.

Katniss was surprised by how quickly she reached the bend. Once there, she stopped along the bank to watch a dipper bob repeatedly under one of the riffles and rise to shake the droplets of water from its dark feathers.

She stooped to select a few broad, flat stones to take back to Greasy Sae.

"Sae complains that her feet get cold at night," Katniss noted, patting the bump through the rough wool of her jacket. "You'll meet her, I hope."

The stones went in her right pocket, in place of the oat bar and almonds that she ate while cutting a bunch of the sedges that Thom's wife worked into baskets. Those wouldn't fit in her pocket, so she worked a bit of thread loose from the hem of her sleeve and used it to wrap them into a bundle that she slung over her shoulder.

Instead of turning back toward the old fence line, she continued upstream, pausing to note the rock weirs she and Gale had set up long ago to catch trout when the water level dropped in late summer.

Katniss lengthened her stride on the relatively flat uplands. Her feet, heart, and lungs settled into rhythm. Pines gave way to low oaks and then stands of silvery beech. These were the lands where Rory now set his trap lines. Katniss hadn't been back since she was a young girl. Out of necessity, she and Gale had worked the shrubbier areas that extended to the west where game was smaller but more prevalent. She was surprised by how much she still recognized. Stumps of chestnut cut for furniture and fences. The lindens with their white summer blooms that could be harvested for tea. The rusted-out frame of a car so old that a witch-hazel bush sprouted up through its roof.

How often she had contemplated that car as a girl. What was it, and how did it get here? Was it older than the fence? Her father had explained how cars worked, but she didn't understand what they were for until years later, at her first Reaping, when she saw Effie Trinket waving from the backseat as the chauffeured Town Car took the District's Tributes away to the station.

Katniss blinked a few times, the image of the faces of her District, of the cracks in Effie's porcelain foundation and the tears on Peeta's cheek coming unbidden to her mind.

Someday their daughter would ask about the Games. In truth, it was one of her greatest fears.

_"Even if we don't say anything, someone else will." She kicked at the sheets where they had twisted around her ankles._

_Peeta glanced toward the window and the lights of the world outside. "You're right. School. Friends. One of the shopkeepers. News broadcasts." He punctuated each with a lazy peck on her forehead._

_"We would have to tell it," Katniss concluded, settling back into the pillow. Then, quietly, "I don't know if I can. I don't know how."_

_"We would have to tell it," he yawned, drawing his arm low around her waist. "One day. But not for a long time."_

Today was not that day.

She kept walking.

There was no more Snow, no Coin. No fence. No Thread, no Cray.

There was no more Reaping, no tesserae. The Games were history. No new Arenas would ever be built.

She and Peeta had waited more than ten years to be certain of that.

She kept walking.

One hour turned to two.

The game trail she had been following disappeared, and Katniss had to find her own way across the gently rolling hills.

She no longer noticed the _crunch crunch crunch_ of her boots in the snow nor minded that the end of her nose was almost numb. She swung her arms in wide arcs to quicken her pace, feeling more alive than she had in months.

Her mother was right. These woods were her sustenance, almost as much now as in the desperate years before the Games, before bakery bread and Peeta's steady hand.

She wondered if her daughter would ever know the woods as she did, or if that kind of intimacy could only be borne out of the need to survive.

_"Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without."_

Gale's old words still came back to her from time to time. So much of her early life—and Gale's—had been dictated by survival. But that wasn't their world anymore. It wouldn't be her daughter's world.

Need was about more than surviving. More than bare life.

Wasn't that what all the years with Peeta had shown her? They needed each other, but they also chose each other. _Peeta came back to Twelve._ It was at the top of the list of kindnesses that she recounted on the bad days.

Life could be good.

She had Peeta to help remind her, and these woods. Her mother had her patients. Gale had Rory, Vick, and Posy. She supposed Haymitch had his geese.

Maybe they all needed more reminders.

Maybe that was the reason for the stares in the town square, the well-wishers at the market. All the people who still seemed to need their Star-Crossed Lovers, their Mockingjay. The baby that would symbolize that the war had been _for_ something. That it added up to something more than all the lost kin and friends and lovers.

Had it? When she revisited the pages for Boggs and Finnick and Prim—especially Prim—Katniss wasn't always sure. Certainty was Gale's business, not hers.

But she did know that life went on, through the simple yet brave task of putting one foot in front of the other. _Slow and steady, slow and steady._

She thought of Thom and the crews that had painstakingly cleared the rubble, cartload by cartload. Of Sae, who still chopped onions and turnips every day for stew. Of the glow that radiated from the windows of the bakery on foggy mornings, and Peeta inside icing flowers onto the cakes that marked the District's births and toastings and other celebrations.

Even this new world needed dandelions.

She surveyed the frozen expanse.

**XOXOX**

Katniss must have walked beneath their branches at least a dozen more times before she recalled what they were. And then it was only because of a conversation she and Peeta earlier that morning.

_"Anything special you want me to bring home for you?"_

_She yawned and blinked, her eyes still adjusting to the overhead light. "You mean other than nuts and oat bars and a loaf or two of whole wheat?"_

_Peeta's reflection grinned back at her as he adjusted his collar in the mirror. "Right, other than the usual."_

_Katniss tucked her feet into her slippers for the walk to the bathroom down the hall._

_"A profiterole?" she requested. "The kind with caramel?"_

_Peeta's eyes fell to the floor. "What about a pastizz?"_

_"Sure, fine, a pastizz," she grumbled. "If you already wanted to bring home pastizzi, I don't know why you bothered to ask."_

_"Hey…." He caught her elbow as she passed. "I _want _to bring you a profiterole." He held her gently until she returned his gaze. "A dozen profiteroles drenched in caramel, if I could. But we're low on sugar again. We haven't made sweet pastries in days. I have to save what sugar we have for a toasting cake next week."_

_Peeta couldn't hide his worry. Not from his wife._

_"Forget the profiterole," she said, and she tried to kiss it away._

Sweetness. Sugar.

These trees weren't just any maples, they were sugar maples, the kind her father had pointed out to her once a long time ago.

_"You see these maples mixed in among the beeches?"_

_Katniss nodded with all the earnestness of her nine years. She swept her head to follow the arc of her father's arm as he gestured all around them._

_ He lowered his voice and asked, conspiratorially, "Would you believe me if I told you that candy grew on trees?"_

_For a moment, she wasn't sure of what to say. He couldn't be serious, could he? She was only in second grade, but already she knew better than to believe in such magic._

_Then her father broke into a broad smile that told her he was teasing. _

_"Daddy, you're being silly!"_

_"Smart girl. Candy doesn't grow on trees, of course." He knocked on a grey trunk that, to her eyes, looked like hundreds of other trees they had seen that day. "But some trees have such sweet sap that people used to make candy from it. These are sugar maples."_

_Katniss took her hand out of her glove and mimicked the way her father ran his fingers down the shaggy bark to help remember it by touch._

_"Do you think that _we_ could make candy from it?" she asked eagerly._

_The mayor's shy daughter had once given her half a piece of saltwater taffy saved from a vacation in Four. Katniss remembered how the taffy had strung out in a thin thread between them when they tried to share it over a library desk, the way just the first taste had filled her mouth with a rush of saliva and how she had sucked on her fingers to capture every last trace of sweetness. _

_Prim hadn't ever had sweets—most Seam kids hadn't—and it would be so much fun to surprise her._

_Her father's face grew pained. It was an offense to poach, but quite another to make syrup. Only Eleven was authorized to produce sugar. The Capitol had long counted on proceeds from the Sugar Tax as part of its revenues._

_Not many people still knew about making syrup, but even in sleepy District Twelve, sugaring would not go unnoticed._

_"Not this year, Kat. Maybe one day."_

It took her a few hours at home that afternoon digging through old boxes and chests to find her spile, the one from the second Arena. It had been years since she had held it. It was lighter than she remembered, and still hung jauntily from its cord. She shifted her weight, uncrossing her legs from beneath her, and held it up toward the window to better examine it. She could see where the metal had been dented slightly by an axe blow.

It was funny to think that this little silver tube had been their lifeline.

Katniss still didn't know how it had come back into her possession after the botched rescue mission and the endless days in the hospital in Thirteen. She supposed Haymitch must have seen to it.

The next morning, as soon as Katniss could be sure Peeta had rounded the bend on the path into town, she slipped her feet into her boots, hung the spile round her neck, and set out for the woods.

It was all right that her jacket no longer buttoned. February had brought clear skies and warmer days, though the nights were still bitterly cold. Long icicles hung from the eaves of all the houses in the Victor's Village. The stream ran strong with meltwater from the south-facing hills. The snow crackled like crème brûlée each time her boot sank through.

Katniss tried to find a direct path back to the stands of sugar maple scattered amongst the beeches. When she reached them, she took her glove off and ran her fingers down the vertical lines of the bark.

She didn't have an axe or a hammer.

Katniss rolled her eyes at her own lack of planning. "Fuck," she cursed, then caught herself. She held her palms on the sides of her belly like earmuffs. "Sorry, baby."

The search for a suitable rock or log proved futile. Even in the sunshine, the ground was covered with a good six inches of snow. It wasn't easy to bend over as it used to be. As she fumbled to straighten, she felt her left boot slide out from under her and had a few unsteady moments before reaching out to grab hold of a viburnum.

"Fuck!"

"Katniss?"

She turned to see a familiar mop of dark hair and squinted into the sun to make out the face.

"_Rory?_" Especially with the quarry of rabbits on his belt, it was hard to believe how much he had grown to look like Gale. "What are you doing out here?"

"I saw your tracks when I was out checking my traplines." Rory twisted the end of a curly beard, looking skeptical. "Thought maybe someone had gotten lost, but it's just you. Are you looking for your bow?"

"Oh, I'm not hunting," she said. He appeared even more perplexed. "Rory, you wouldn't happen to have a drill and a hammer at your place, would you?"

When they had come back to Twelve from Thirteen, Hazelle and the three youngest Hawthornes were granted temporary residence in one of the houses in the Victor's Village in recognition of heroic valor during the rebellion. Rory hadn't wanted any part of it. He spent all his days wandering the woods and eventually found the old shack by the lake. He began sleeping there, coming into town only often enough so that his mother didn't send a search party out to find him. With money earned from trading meat and pelts, he began to buy, piece by piece, the wood to fashion a proper cabin. He still hunted and trapped and traded, and was paid a pittance by the townsfolk to serve as a sort of forest ranger now that the fence was down.

It didn't take them long to get to the lake. Rory walked impossibly fast, and Katniss had too much pride to ask for a rest.

"I'd invite you in for a cup," he said, "but I'm out of sugar."

Katniss waved it off. "S'alright, everyone is."

Rory disappeared into a lean-to around the back side of the cabin. Katniss could hear him shuffling boxes and rattling drawers.

"That's actually what I need the drill for," she called. "Sugar. I'm going to make some."

When Rory came back with the tools, he was certain she had lost it. He remembered the time when his mother, eight months pregnant with Posy, had put Gale's schoolbag into the washtub to soak instead of his jacket, ruining all his homework and a mineralogy textbook.

But as Rory accompanied Katniss back to the maple stand, he listened to her plan and, by the time they arrived, it didn't sound that crazy.

"There's sugar in the sap?" he asked. "And you're going to collect the sap?"

"Yes," she confirmed. "With this." She dug the cord out from under her sweater.

Rory stood back as Katniss drilled a shallow hole in the trunk and gently tapped in the spile.

Then they both leaned close and watched as, within a few moments, a bead of clear moisture began to gather on the spout. As more sap gathered, the droplet wobbled and shook, then finally ran down the silver tube.

Rory thrust out his palm to catch it. "I'll be damned."

"Well?" Katniss asked expectantly.

He lapped up the liquid with his tongue and frowned. "It's good, but … it's not very sweet."

Katniss tipped her own hand to her lips, letting the second drop from the spile come to rest on her tongue. It tasted weak, not nearly as sweet as white sugar, not nearly sweet enough for Peeta to use in the bakery. Nothing close to as sweet as orange juice or even dried plums.

Mostly, it tasted like it looked, like water.

"Fuck," she concluded, wishing she hadn't bothered getting her hopes up and really wishing she hadn't brought Rory into it.

She should have known it would never work.

Katniss pulled the spile out and tossed it down onto the snow.

"Pick it up," Rory said, his arms crossed and voice firm.

"Sorry," she muttered, her mood mercurial. She braced one hand on the trunk to help her bend down. "Forgot I was with the ranger."

"That is not why," Rory corrected, wondering if he should help her up. "I just wouldn't want to see you lose it."

**XOXOX**

"You look exhausted," Katniss purred, as Peeta slumped on the edge of their bed, fiddling with the clasps on his prosthetic. He only missed dinner when things at the bakery were either very good or very bad.

"I am," he said. "I think I've called every sugar mill in Panem three times. It's impossible to get sugar shipped express right now. Apparently freight is backed up across the country and only necessities are getting through."

She was glad that she hadn't said anything about the sugar maple experiment. It was easier to pretend she wasn't disappointed without Peeta being disappointed for her.

"Here, let me see if I can help." Katniss kneeled on the carpet. She tried to look coquettish as she leaned over to undo the buckles for him. She was eager to get his pants off and take his cock in her mouth. She had been thinking about it since dinner.

Peeta shifted his hips and slid his pants to the floor unceremoniously. "Aaaah!" He groaned as he collapsed back into the down comforter.

Katniss climbed up into bed beside him and scooted toward him so that her breasts nestled against his arm. She moved her hand down across his stomach. Through the years, his torso had remained taut. She traced the ridges of his abs through his t-shirt.

"Katniss, will you please stop that?" He sounded mildly annoyed. "I'm tired of sucking in. And … I'm just tired."

"Okay."

She knew this code. Had learned it when he first opened the bakery, before he had anyone to help out, when he did all the baking and worked the front counter from open to close.

Katniss turned onto her left side so that she faced away from him.

"Good night." Peeta made satisfied mewls as he nuzzled his cheek against the pillow.

"Good night."

They lay in silence for several minutes. Katniss counted them as the second hand of the alarm clock ticked away from the dresser.

"Are you mad? Please don't be mad, Katniss."

"I'm not mad," she answered dully.

She wasn't mad. But she also wasn't tired, not even close.

"Good," Peeta said drowsily. "Because I promise it has nothing to do with you. I just had a shitty day." He yawned. "You're beautiful, and I love you, and I promise to ravish you tomorrow."

"You better," she said, unable to keep herself from smiling.

She needed to do something about the heat that pulsed between her legs. She couldn't very well touch herself with Peeta snoring there beside her. At least, not the way she needed to. His arm was like a lead weight across her side. She wriggled out from under it, slipped on her robe, and crept downstairs.

There was a natural hiding place behind a loose brick under the windowsill in the den.

It was where she kept the smutty serials that Johanna sent from the New Capitol.

At first she had been mortified.

_"What the hell did you just send me?"_

_The snorting on the other end of the line was so loud that she had to hold the phone back from her ear._

_"I can't even believe you could even get that through the post!"_

_"Yeah, I'm a real freedom fighter here." Johanna laughed riotously. "So you read it."_

_Katniss felt a blush rise up her neck to her cheeks. "I read … enough."_

_"And?"_

_"And what the hell would you send that to me for?!"_

_"Isn't it obvious, brainless?"_

_It was entirely too obvious. So obvious that she worried that the postal carrier might have guessed at what was inside the parcel. She would die from shame if Peeta ever found it._

_"I wanted to get you something you could use. It's not like either of us are the type to appreciate a well-made handbag or scented candles. This was the best birthday present I could find. Plus, it's a series—that's a gift that keeps on giving."_

_"A card would have been sufficient," Katniss quipped, looking with bemusement at the paperback's cover. _

_"The lady doth protest too much."_

_"What is that supposed to mean?"_

_"It means you need to read more, brainless."_

_Katniss snorted._

_"Anyway, welcome to your thirties. Trust me, even with Bread Boy's magical baguette, you'll be buttering your own muffin on the regular. Hormones are cruel bitches. That's why I only date twenty-year-olds. You'll see."_

_"What are you now, my mentor or something?"_

_"Trust me, this is better than any damn ointment or water spout Haymitch ever sent you."_

Katniss searched for five minutes before remembering that she had pitched the books two weeks prior, fearing Peeta might find them when the two of them got around to baby-proofing the lower level of the house.

By that time the source of her frustration had changed. Damn pregnancy brain. She hated how forgetful she had gotten.

She could only imagine what Johanna would have to say about this situation. She would probably never let Katniss live it down.

A few minutes later, the phone was ringing in Johanna's apartment in the New Capitol.

"Shh," Katniss could hear her friend whisper, "just go in the bathroom and turn on the fan. You're not allowed to listen in!" Then, in her regular voice, "Hello?"

"Am I interrupting something?"

Jo tried to sound casual. "No, I'm just putting together some papers for work tomorrow."

Johanna was the director of The Victors' Trust, the charity that had been set up to fund projects for orphans and war widows. She was a clever fundraiser and a bulldog of a lobbyist.

Katniss was skeptical. "Really? Because it sounded like someone else was there. I can call back if you have a _visitor_."

"Don't be daft."

Katniss was certain she had heard another person, but Johanna had no reason to lie about it. Jo had never been shy about sharing the details of her conquests—whether Katniss wanted to hear them or not.

"Okaaaaay…." Katniss decided not to push it. "I know you have early meetings, so I won't keep you. I just have a quick question."

"Yes. He wants to try it, but he's too much of a gentleman to ask."

"Ha, ha. Very funny."

"Isn't that always the answer?"

Katniss tried to ignore her friend's crass assumption. "Do you know anything about tapping trees for sugar?" She explained everything: her memory of what her father told her, the spile and the sap, her confusion that it wasn't at all sweet like syrup.

"It's not something we did in Seven—the climate's not right. But we did make turpentine. ... Have you tried boiling it?"

Katniss considered a moment. "Boiling it?"

She could almost hear Johanna rolling her eyes. "Yes, brainless, boiling off the water to concentrate the sugar."

It was like the moment when Beetee pointed out the chink in the forcefield. Of course. It needed to be distilled. Like Ripper's white liquor. She couldn't believe she didn't think of it before.

"Kat?"

"Yeah, thanks, Jo. I'll try it." Katniss was ready to hang up and begin planning where and how she could boil gallons of sap.

"Wait, did I just hear that right?"

"What?"

"Did you just say, 'Thank you, Jo, I'll try it'?"

"Shut up," Katniss muttered.

"Aw, I love you too, Mockingjay."

"G'night, Jo. … You can tell your friend to come out of the bathroom now."

**XOXOX**

"That's it?"

Katniss could hardly believe that an entire bucketful of sap had yielded so little syrup. She spooned it into a pint jar that used to hold mincemeat, and it didn't even come halfway up the side.

Still, it was a start. And the distilled syrup was undeniably delicious: amber and rich and sweet.

A droplet of sweat or condensed steam from the boiling pot—she couldn't tell which—dripped down Katniss's forehead and onto her eyelashes. She brushed it off with the back of her hand. At least the fog on the windows might help keep her secret from the neighbors. All the surfaces in the kitchen were covered with jars that she had washed out to repurpose for syrup.

She had expected there would be more of it.

She was going to need a lot more sap if she hoped to make enough syrup to last more than a day in the bakery. More taps and buckets. A larger kettle and much more wood to stoke the fire.

Katniss tried to ignore the fact that the cuffs of her wool pants were still wet from going out in the snow earlier that day. She pulled them up over her leggings, as high on her hips as her belly would allow.

"Sorry baby, I didn't mean to squash you," she apologized, exhaling after struggling to do the button.

Ninety minutes later, she was waiting on the porch of Rory Hawthorne's cabin with the half-jar of syrup in her hands as an offering.

Katniss hoped she wouldn't have to wait much longer. The sun would set around six, so she needed to be on the path by four-thirty unless she wanted to complete the journey in darkness. Peeta should be home by seven anyway, and she would need to put away the jars or risk ruining the surprise.

Peeta's birthday was three weeks away, on March 16. Katniss was planning to present him with a vat of syrup, _if_ she could make enough of it and _if_ she could keep it a secret that long.

Sugaring meant that she was out of the house for much of the day. Not that Peeta cared if she was gone—after all, he had been pushing her to get back into the woods—but he would surely want to hear what she had seen and done when they talked through their days over supper. Katniss was still a terrible liar.

Around three o'clock, she began to pace to keep herself from shivering. By three-thirty, she allowed that it was unlikely Rory would be back before she had to go. He could be many miles away, gone to check his traplines or patrolling for bear too near the fence line. At four, she left the syrup on his doorstep and turned toward home.

The next morning, Rory showed up at the maple stand with his drill and hammer.

"You frightened me," Katniss gasped, clutching the knife she had used down by the stream to cut pieces of hollow elderberry cane for spiles. "Shit, you're quiet."

Rory grinned proudly. As a boy, he had aspired to one day be trusted to go out hunting with Gale and Katniss. "I got your syrup," he said. "It was good." He had drizzled it over frybread and used it to sweeten the tea in his thermos and had opened the jar a time or two just to lick it off a spoon. "So good that I figured you'd be wanting to make more."

"You figured right," Katniss nodded, pleased that Rory liked it. "I can't do it by myself, though."

A partnership was struck. Katniss would take care of the supplies and change out the buckets each morning to be sure they didn't overflow with sap. Rory would haul the collected sap down to where it could be sugared off. He would chop the wood to kindle the fire, and Katniss would oversee the boiling and bottling.

She thought it would take more convincing, but Rory agreed almost immediately.

To her further surprise, he refused to accept a share of the syrup beyond what he wanted to keep for personal use. Katniss couldn't get him to accept any bread in trade or to agree to let her sell a portion of the syrup at the Hob to give him coins.

"I want to help," he insisted.

Katniss wondered if Rory ever got lonely out here. He had always seemed contented to live by himself, with only the trees and the wind for company. Hazelle and Posy were near enough if he needed them.

There weren't many people his age in the District. Most of the children had been lost in the firebombing or felled by illness or injury in war that followed.

Katniss thought of Prim, who used to hang on Rory's every word, and resolved to stop by the cabin from time to time, even after the sugaring was done. In better conditions, Peeta might be able to walk up with her. Peeta was always trying to convince Katniss to sing, and she knew that Rory played the fiddle—or at least he used to, years ago.

They set out to tap more trees. Katniss had brought up some buckets , and Rory was able to scrounge a few from around the cabin. They could tap five new trees today, two more tomorrow when she carried another pair of buckets up.

The sap made a satisfying _plunk plunk plunk_ as it dripped into the buckets all around them.

As she followed behind the drill, tapping the wood spiles with the hammer, Katniss found herself humming songs she hadn't thought of since her father had been alive.

It was a comfort having a partner to work alongside again.

**XOXOX**

"Katniss?"

She wasn't upstairs.

"Katniss? Love, are you here?"

She wasn't in the room they were preparing for a nursery either.

Thinking of old habits, he checked the closets and was relieved not to find her in any of them.

She must have gone out.

Peeta tore off a bite of bread from the loaf on the kitchen table and popped it into his mouth.

He had felt bad about all the late nights he had been working and decided to surprise Katniss by coming home early. With favorable weather, there hadn't been a train holiday in weeks. While that was good news for the bakery's bottom line, there were other benefits that he missed. Namely, having his wife's naked body in his arms for an entire day.

Before the pregnancy, Katniss had spent most of her time away from the house. She hunted and gathered plants and made trades around town. If she was out, getting back to doing those things, then it was as a sign that she was feeling steadier and less anxious about the pregnancy—and all the possible complications—than she had been in the early months.

It had been awful to see her like that. To feel like nothing he tried could help her and, worse, that it was all his fault.

Katniss seemed happier, though, in recent weeks. She woke up with him in the morning, and they ate breakfast and did dishes together and she padded back upstairs for a few more hours' sleep. When he saw her again in the evening, her eyes seemed bright. She listened and laughed and teased him with jokes of her own. And when she kissed him, she was_ really_ kissing him. He was an expert in distinguishing the difference.

If Katniss was out hunting, Peeta figured, she likely wouldn't be back for several more hours. He considered returning to the bakery, but instead decided to stay and use the free time to do long-neglected chores around the house. Mail and papers were scattered in piles on surfaces throughout the house. The oven needed a good cleaning. There were a few loose bricks in the den that needed to be mortared back into place.

It certainly wouldn't hurt his chances of getting Katniss's legs wrapped around his neck later if she came home to a clean house.

When he found her bow and quiver in their usual spot propped up against a bookshelf, Peeta began to worry. It wasn't like her. Katniss always took her bow with her when she went into the woods, even when they were just hiking to the lake for a swim.

He convinced himself that she must have gone over to Haymitch's, or into town to check on Sae or to visit Thom's wife, who had offered to give them the cradle that her boy had just outgrown.

But then, while cleaning the glass on the kitchen window, he noticed the footprints in the snow along the side of the house.

They led not to Haymitch's or town, but toward the woods, though not by Katniss's usual route via the Meadow. Instead, these tracks went straight back from the house.

Something felt wrong about following her, and it wasn't just the discomfort of wading through snowdrifts with only one good leg. He trusted Katniss and wouldn't want her to think otherwise.

He only needed to know that she was okay.

Peeta didn't need to fight the snowdrifts for long. The tracks led from the house to a well-trod path. Peeta was relieved when he realized, about fifteen minutes later, that the path was just a shortcut that connected with the trail to the lake.

_Of course._

The lake had always been her refuge. It was too cold for even Katniss to be tempted to swim, but she might still enjoy watching gathering reeds or waterfowl from the bank. She could kindle a fire in the little shack to warm her hands or heat water for tea.

Peeta smiled. It felt good to know someone as well as he knew Katniss after all these years.

How many times had she brought him to the lake? It was where she taught him how to float in the water, body relaxed and face tipped to the sun. And where he had also learned that she liked the tickle of his eyelashes against the soft skin of her thighs, that it made her giggle. And that the touch of his tongue could quickly turn her laughter to a gasp, could make her small hands clutch at the blanket as she shattered.

He hoped she had a fire going now. He fantasized about laying her down upon his jacket beside it, pushing her knees up and burying his face in her damp curls. Rory Hawthorne's cabin was all the way across the lake. No one would be there to catch them. She wouldn't have to worry about open windows and neighbors and could cry out as loud as she wanted.

He quickened his pace.

As he approached, though, he could see that something wasn't right about the cloud that rose from the chimney of the shack. It wasn't the gentle trail of smoke he would have expected. Instead, it was a large white cloud, billowing up from the flue. Tendrils of it came seeping out around the unsealed windows and through the cracks between the boards.

Was Katniss in there? What if she was trapped inside?

Now he was sprinting, arms pumping and heart racing through his chest. It barely registered that he had fallen repeatedly on the packed snow. All he knew was that he had to reach Katniss.

But then he saw her, stepping calmly out the low door of the shack, even taking the time to prop it open behind her with what appeared to be a large bucket.

_Why wasn't she running?_

She walked around to a small wood pile stacked against the wall, gathered three pieces of cut wood into her arms, and walked back inside the shack.

He called out to her, but she must not have heard him.

She had closed the door behind her.

Peeta rubbed his eyes, wondering if this was some kind of strange false memory. But nothing about the scene was shiny. He waited a few moments to be sure this wasn't the beginning of an episode.

Peeta only noticed the drops of blood that had pricked up on his palms when he went to knock on the door of the shack. By now he had realized that the cloud coming out the chimney wasn't smoke at all. Just steam.

Still, it was strange. What was she doing in there?

_Knock knock_.

The door swung in. "Don't know why you bothered to—oh!" Katniss's eyes were wide as saucers. She hurried to step outside, pulling the door closed behind her.

"Were you expecting someone else?" Peeta asked, brow knitted.

"No!" she insisted. "No, I just didn't expect to hear a knock on the door."

"I took the afternoon off," Peeta offered, hoping his explanation might prompt one from her. "I thought I'd spend it with you. But you weren't home, so I figured I'd come find you. At least make sure you were okay."

"I'm okay," she said, her voice rising at the end as if to close the conversation. She bit the inside of her cheek the way he knew—better than anyone else—that she did when she was pretending.

He frowned. "Um, Katniss …" He ran his hands through the front of his hair. _Fuck. _Clearly she was hiding something. These kinds of discussions never went well.

Peeta hesitated a moment and considered whether it was something he really wanted to know. She obviously had thought someone else was at the door.

Who would come all the way out here to meet with her?

And what was all the steam about? _What the fuck?_

He considered hunting down Rory Hawthorne and cutting his balls off. But no. Katniss and Rory? It would never happen. There had to be another explanation. Katniss wouldn't do that.

He saw waves of bright light cresting across his vision. The first sign of an oncoming episode. He clenched his jaw.

_Katniss loves you. Katniss married you. Katniss sleeps beside you every night. You're about to have a child together. _

Surely there was another explanation. A reasonable explanation. And the sooner he knew it, the more likely he would be to fight the episode off before it pulled him under.

"Mind if I ask what you're up to in there?"

Katniss hesitated a moment and considered telling him the whole thing. She was still a terrible liar. But his birthday was a little more than a week away. If she could just hold him off a little longer, she would have nearly four gallons of syrup to give him. Not enough by a long-shot to replace all the white sugar the bakery required, but a start. And if he liked it, then next year she could tap more trees and start earlier in the season. If he liked it, all her hard work—and Rory's help—would have paid off.

"It's… uh…" She peered over her belly at the toes of her boots. It gave her an idea. "It's embarrassing, really."

Peeta felt a surge of relief.

Embarrassing he could deal with. Embarrassing wasn't what Katniss would say if she had really been coming out here to meet someone. He laughed and pulled her into his chest.

"Oof!" she exhaled as his big arms wrapped around her shoulders.

He drew back and looked at her expectantly, waiting for the explanation.

"It's women's herbs," she said, hoping it sounded convincing. "For a healthy baby. Old lore from the Seam. Probably bunk, but you never know."

She waited for his reaction. If he didn't buy it, she could always just tell him the truth. Invite him inside the shack to see the sap boiling away in the kettle and the jars of amber syrup.

He sighed. "Rory was just helping you gather herbs. That is who you were expecting, isn't it?"

"Yes," she answered. At least that part wasn't a lie.

"Old lore," Peeta considered. "You mean like witchcraft?"

There were stories that the Merchant kids learned, cautionary tales about witches from the Seam who would snatch them up from their beds and boil them up in cauldrons if they didn't mind their parents and do a smart job in the shop.

Katniss could see the corners of his mouth twitching up into a grin.

"See?" she asked, narrowing her eyes playfully. "You're laughing at me."

He looked up at the steam that still poured forth from the chimney. "It explains a lot."

"What?" she asked, glad to see him relaxed again.

"You bewitched me, that's for sure."

That evening in the bath, he had a lot more questions. She tried to answer them as honestly as she could.

"You've been going into the woods often?"

"Yes. Every day."

He dripped soap from the sponge across the defined muscles of her shoulders.

"But you don't take your bow?"

"No, I don't. I still don't feel comfortable hunting."

He moved his hands under the water and around to her belly.

"Being out there helps you. Makes you feel better."

"Yes."

"You're happy here, with me."

Water sloshed out the sides of the tub as she turned to face him.

"Yes. Peeta, yes! Of course I am." She put a soapy hand on his cheek.

"But do you ever feel lonely?"

She wasn't sure what he was getting at. "This isn't about what you said earlier about Rory, is it?" she ventured.

"No," he assured her, embarrassed that he had even considered it. "No, I mean, do you ever miss your friends?"

"Of course," she said, still uncertain of what he was asking. They both had people that they missed dearly. They had been coping with those losses for over a decade. She had lost Prim and Madge. Peeta, his entire family and all his friends from town. Then there was Finnick and Mags, Wiress, Rue and all the other faces they had painted in the book.

She wondered what exactly he meant, bringing it up like this out of the blue.

"At least we have Haymitch," she joked, kissing the end of Peeta's nose. "Now trade me places so I can wash your hair."

**XOXOX**

Annie called him back at the bakery on Friday with her answer. "It's a lovely invitation, Peeta, but it would be hard for me to get Finn out of school on such short notice."

"Of course, Annie. I understand," he said. "We would be happy to have you any time."

"Maybe in summer," she said, "when school's out. Or you could come down to Four. I'd love to visit with Katniss. Tell her I say hello."

"I will, thanks. And give Finn a big hug from us."

"I will." He could hear her smile. "Happy birthday, Peeta."

Annie's was the last call he was waiting on.

Delly, too, was out. She was the lead archivist on a project dealing with old nuclear records and wouldn't be able to leave Thirteen until it finished up.

Gale would be attending the State of Panem address. He couldn't skip it since he would be seated on the dais this year, alongside the President.

Johanna, strangely enough, had the same excuse. She would be seated next to Gale. As his date.

_"Don't tell Kat, okay?"_

_Telling Katniss that Johanna was fucking Gale was the last thing Peeta wanted to do._

_"Gale wanted to talk to her himself, but we figured we'd wait."_

_"Wait?" Peeta asked. From her own stories, he didn't know Johanna to be one to wait for anything._

_"Until we knew if it was serious."_

_"Oh," Peeta said, adjusting his assumptions. "And is it?"_

_"His boxes are stacked in my hallway right now."_

_"Jo! Congratulations. I'm really happy for you. Surprised as hell, but really happy."_

_"Thanks, Peet. Hawthorne surprised me too."_

_"He's a good guy."_

_"Better be. I don't clean out my hall closet for just anyone's rusty hunting knives. ... Anyway, have a good time without us, birthday boy."_

In truth, his birthday was just the excuse.

He had invited them for Katniss.

Peeta worried that the pregnancy had left her feeling isolated. He was at the bakery all day, and she was left to rattle around the house. With Katniss's mother in Four and Hazelle Hawthorne away for a while, keeping house for Vick in Five, Katniss only had Peeta and—on the days he was sober enough to answer the door—Haymitch.

Peeta understood what she was trying to do out at the lake. He didn't believe in the old lore, of course, and he was fairly certain Katniss didn't either.

But it wasn't really about that.

It was a connection to the Seam and to her past, to the family she had lost and the community that had been scattered by the war.

Peeta knew that ache.

It was the same reason he had rebuilt the bakery.

He had hoped that if he could bring together a small party of the people Katniss loved—people who loved her, too—it might help satisfy her need for roots. Of course, pulling together a party on a week's notice didn't put the odds in your favor that guests would be able to travel in from all corners of Panem.

In a moment of desperation, he had even phoned Effie. Her assistant informed him that Ms. Trinket was not expected back in the office for some time, but that the message would go out to her in the next day's post.

When Peeta didn't hear anything, he decided it was just as well. He wasn't sure how Katniss would feel about hosting their old District Escort, especially if no one else came to the party. Katniss still worried about hidden cameras and the reporters and photographers that seemed to follow whenever Effie came to town.

This way was better. It would just be the two of them.

In just a few short months, that would change for good.

**XOXOX**

"Close your eyes," Katniss commanded. "Promise they're closed?"

"I promise." Peeta felt for the top step with his foot, careful so that he wouldn't trip. Her small hand gripped his, guiding him into the entryway.

The last time they had done this, Peeta had opened his eyes to find Katniss lying naked on the kitchen table with a piping bag of icing waiting beside her.

He hoped this wasn't going to be one of those surprise parties where friends jump out from behind counters and curtains, because the erection that was popping up in his khaki work pants would make things awkward.

"Don't open them yet!" Katniss pulled him down the hall to the kitchen. She could hardly contain her excitement. "I've been wanting to tell you about this for weeks."

Peeta smirked. "I could keep my eyes closed, and you could describe it to me…."

He was usually the one who did the talking, but he would gladly relinquish that role for the day.

"No, it's okay, you can open them … now!"

Katniss stood beside him, still holding his hand and fully clothed. She gestured to the table.

"Happy birthday, Peeta!"

It was covered with jars and bottles of all shapes and sizes. They were filled with a warm brown liquid that almost seemed to glow where the sunlight through the window lit it up from behind.

He picked up one of the smaller bottles to examine it. Up close, the contents appeared a thick, dark gold liquid.

"Do you know what it is?"

Katniss took the bottle from his hand and unscrewed the cap. Peeta watched as she drizzled a thin stream of the liquid onto her finger.

She held it to his lips, and he swept his tongue out to lick the syrup from the pad.

The sweetness of it registered right away, but there was something more, a richness that hinted of vanilla and firewood and moss.

"It's delicious," he said. "You made this?"

"Yes. With help from Rory."

Peeta's brow crinkled. "This is what you were making out at the lake?"

"Yes," she confessed. "Not 'women's herbs'—_blech!_ I'm sorry that I lied to you about that. I had been making syrup for weeks, and I really wanted it to be a surprise."

Peeta laughed. "What kind of witchcraft did it take to make this? I'm afraid the sugar alone must have cost a small fortune."

"The trees made the sugar," she corrected. She explained the process of tapping the trees, collecting sap, and sugaring. For the past week, she had been hauling the filled bottles and jars back with her when she walked home. There was nearly five gallons. "I know it's not enough to substitute for white sugar, but I thought it might help you keep the bakery open when the train shipment doesn't get through."

"So this is what real maple syrup tastes like?" Peeta asked, sipping it from a spoon. "I've heard of it before, but I've only ever had the imitation maple flavoring that was sent to us in place of almond flavoring once. My father tried using it in cookies, but no one bought them. I guess people in Twelve don't have much of a taste for maple."

"Maybe not if it's _imitation_ maple," Katniss scoffed. "But this stuff wasn't brought in thousands of miles. It's made from our own trees, with the water and sunlight that fell here in Twelve. Its taste _is _the District."

**XOXOX**

That evening, Katniss asked Peeta if he had any birthday fantasies that she might help him fulfill.

"There is something I've wanted to do for years." He grinned slyly. "I used to think about it a lot when I was a teenager, and something you said today reminded me of it."

They cleared the kitchen table, save one bottle of maple syrup.

Katniss creamed butter and maple syrup. Peeta added the eggs and flour.

They pressed the sharp edge of a cookie cutter into the chilled dough so that it came out in the form of leaves and flowers.

The cookie smelled divine as they baked. When they were cool enough, Peeta piped white icing along the edges.

"Are you ready to fulfill a lifelong fantasy?" Katniss asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Peeta's face glowed.

They walked side-by-side into town. Peeta carried a large box, Katniss a basket.

Going systematically, street-by-street, they knocked on the front door of every home in Twelve. For Peeta Mellark's birthday, he made sure that each and every child in the District was given a cookie.

He kept his hand on the small of his wife's back and graciously accepted all the good wishes and congratulations from their neighbors on the upcoming birth of their baby girl.

**XOXOX**

Haymitch couldn't guess at who the hell would be waiting on his porch.

It was too late to hide behind the coop. He had been spotted.

Haymitch tossed the last crust of bread over his shoulder, sighed deeply, and stomped up the hill toward the house.

The figure on the porch appeared frail, with meager arms and an ear-length fringe of dull, straw-colored hair. The person was seated atop a small suitcase.

With any luck, it was just a waif, lost en route to the Community Home. If that was the case, Haymitch thought, he should be able to make quick riddance of it.

By the way that the figure stood, it was no child. And when it spoke his name, he nearly dropped his flask.

Instead, Haymitch popped the cap and took a deep swig. It bought him a moment to compose himself.

"What are you doing here?"

Effie stepped under the moonlight where he could better size her up. He had never seen her like this, without the wig and the layers of make-up and shape enhancers. Her hair was flecked with silver. He might not recognize her if not for the look of set determination he had seen her wear when facing difficult circumstances.

It had been nearly a year, the longest they had gone without contact since they were just annual partners in the Reaping. The Victory Tour and the second Games had changed that, and thoroughly unsettled him.

"Peeta invited me," she said simply.

Haymitch snorted. "The boy invited you into my house? Some manners you taught him."

"I came for his birthday, though the train was horribly late, and I'm afraid I must have missed them."

"Where's the camera crew, toots?" Haymitch pretended to look behind the camellia bushes, the columns, even under the doormat. "Or did you tell them to bring their suitcases around the back?"

Effie blinked but otherwise didn't react to the feint. "I came on my own."

"I bet you did," Haymitch said snidely.

"I'd like to stay."

It was the same question she had asked him a year ago. Only this time she had a suitcase, and no hovercraft waiting to swoop her back to One. She meant it this time, or at least she thought she did.

"Do I look like I'm running a hotel here?" he dodged. "I doubt my thread count is up to your standards."

"Do I look anything like the woman you knew from the Capitol?" Effie shot back.

Haymitch had to give her credit. He hadn't expected her to hit back like that. He gave her a sly grin. "Now that you mention it, there is something different. New salon?"

"Come now, Haymitch. Surely you can do better than that."

Even without the trappings of her corset, she still stood ramrod straight.

"What?" he asked, with false innocence. "I always liked you in pink. Shame to see it go. What must your stylists think?"

"I haven't been to the salon in more than nine months."

"Beauty-base zero, hmm?"

She set her jaw. "Do you want to know where I _have_ been, Haymitch?"

He did. He had wondered every day since the last time he saw her on television.

Effie folded her hands tight at her waist. "I spent the first ten weeks at an orphanage in Eight, working in the kitchen."

Haymitch could hardly believe this. "Did the orphans prefer straight up or on the rocks?"

She had expected this kind of reaction. "I learned to cook. I learned to do a lot of things." She had learned not to do a lot of things as well. She flushed all her pills and powders down the toilet in the third week. "I washed dishes and did laundry and cleaned the floors."

The thought of the old Effie on hands and knees with a scrub brush only made sense if it was for some kind of misguided high-fashion photo shoot. But this wasn't the old Effie.

He supposed that was the whole point of what she had come to tell him.

"I went to Eleven. I trained as an orderly at the Veteran's Home there, changing dressings and scrubbing bedpans."

The old Effie would have put the veterans and their bowel movements on a strictly enforced schedule. Haymitch tried not to laugh. It would be unforgivable of him to laugh at her now.

She couldn't tell if he was listening or if perhaps he had passed out.

"Shall I go on?" she ventured.

He nodded, his thumbs rubbing circles on the smooth metal of the flask.

"I volunteered with the Refugee Commission in the camps on the border of Two and Three. I met a woman there, another volunteer, whose family has a dairy in Ten. When I cycled out, I went to stay on their farm, and they taught me how to make butter and cheese."

Haymitch found it was no longer difficult to imagine the Effie before him, with her smooth-scrubbed skin and simple tunic, doing all of these things.

The hard part was trying to imagine himself doing them. He took a long pull from the flask.

"Sounds like one hell of a vacation, sugar."

Effie took a step closer to him. Without her old four-inch heels, he noticed, she was actually quite petite.

"You see, Haymitch, I wanted to become useful. I want to _be _useful. You told me Twelve was no place for me, but you're wrong. I could volunteer at the hospital or help to care for elders. Make cheese, if there's any milk to be had. Be here for Katniss and Peeta when the baby is born."

Haymitch didn't say anything, because he didn't yet know what to say.

Effie Trinket had changed. And he hadn't. He glanced toward his geese. Not enough, at least.

She began to fidget. She tucked and untucked her hair from behind her ears at least five times and brushed her fingertips along a spot on her cheek that used to be emblazoned with a jewel.

She wished he would say something. Tell her to get the hell off his porch if he wanted.

Anything was better than the uncertainty of his silence.

It finally broke her resolve.

"Oh, I'm sure you think me ridiculous!" she burst, reaching for the handle of her suitcase. "You always have. And it is ridiculous, to think I could make up for all those years in nine months."

Coming here had been a mistake.

But she raised her head high. She still believed in good bearing. "Farewell, Haymitch."

"No!" Haymitch croaked, needing to say something to stop her before she stepped off his porch for good. "No! I don't think you're ridiculous, not at all."

Effie turned back to him, loosening her grip on the handle of her suitcase."You don't?"

Grey eyes met her hazel. They had both collected plenty more creases and lines since their last meeting.

"No, I don't," Haymitch confirmed. He took a few more moments, struggling to find the words. "I think you're brave."

**XOXOX**

What may be known about the origins of Sugaring Day is this:

Each year on her father's birthday, the Star-Crossed Lovers' daughter germinated a sugar maple from seed and planted it outside their home in the Victor's Village.

The circle of trees radiated outward. Others took up the practice, and sugar maples sprouted up all around District Twelve.

Every March the townsfolk still come together to boil down sap to syrup and to plant the new trees propagated from seeds that were collected the previous fall.

In the evenings, all the ovens in the district are aglow, baking maple cookies that will be shared with neighbors and mailed to kin and friends in the other districts.

A bequest from a pair of anonymous donors ensures that every child in Panem, regardless of district and circumstance, receives a maple cookie and a piping bag filled with hot pink icing.

* * *

_**A/N**: MalTease requested a HAPPY post-MJ Everlark story. Whenever I try to write something fluffy, it tends to get away from me. I hope this is a happy story by the end at least. I must give nods to silvercistern for hermit Rory and to msdisdain for Johanna's gifting proclivities ... sometimes characterizations are so perfect that you can't help but have them become part of your headcanon, and I thank you both for your wonderful stories. Most importantly, thanks to MalTease for this prompt, and to **angylinni** and **sponsormusings** for organizing the exchange._


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